Andrew R. Olah, Ashley M. Dillard, Stephanie J. Gomez
Two experiments assess the validity of common criticisms against the popular party game Cards Against Humanity (CAH), namely that it promotes prejudice while absolving players of any moral responsibility. Study 1a (based on Prejudiced Norm Theory) finds no evidence that sexist humor in CAH encourages men to express prejudice against women. However, Study 1b (based on Social Identity Theory) provides evidence that sexist humor in CAH cues women to anticipate such discrimination. CAH’s reputation does not appear to contribute to these results. Exploratory analyses further reveal that, consistent with criticisms, people do allocate moral responsibility for offense differently in CAH than in traditional verbal exchanges of humor; however, this moral allocation is generally unrelated to prejudiced outcomes. Implications and future directions for refining these theories and understanding the intergroup functions of humor in party games are discussed in light of the studies’ mixed support of CAH’s criticisms.
{"title":"Party games and prejudice: are these Cards Against Humanity?","authors":"Andrew R. Olah, Ashley M. Dillard, Stephanie J. Gomez","doi":"10.1515/humor-2023-0133","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0133","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Two experiments assess the validity of common criticisms against the popular party game Cards Against Humanity (CAH), namely that it promotes prejudice while absolving players of any moral responsibility. Study 1a (based on Prejudiced Norm Theory) finds no evidence that sexist humor in CAH encourages men to express prejudice against women. However, Study 1b (based on Social Identity Theory) provides evidence that sexist humor in CAH cues women to anticipate such discrimination. CAH’s reputation does not appear to contribute to these results. Exploratory analyses further reveal that, consistent with criticisms, people do allocate moral responsibility for offense differently in CAH than in traditional verbal exchanges of humor; however, this moral allocation is generally unrelated to prejudiced outcomes. Implications and future directions for refining these theories and understanding the intergroup functions of humor in party games are discussed in light of the studies’ mixed support of CAH’s criticisms.","PeriodicalId":516216,"journal":{"name":"HUMOR","volume":"355 10","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140698034","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The sermon joyeux is a polemical and frivolous genre of late medieval French literature that parodies religious sermons. These humorous writings in verse transcended the canons of propriety and soon gained popularity across Europe, surviving even after the Middle Ages. This article, concentrating on the sermons joyeux that represent the lives of false saints, analyses three main sources of parody for this subgroup of the genre: the comic tradition of ecclesiastical parody in general, liturgical parody, and hagiographical parody. The study outlines a general landscape of the comic tradition in which sermons joyeux were created, highlighting some probable precursors to the genre with the goal of describing the characteristic features of these parodies. The analysis of the examples from the sermons joyeux themselves illuminates the reasons for the mock sermons’ popularity among and beyond clerical audiences and demonstrates how these texts may be perceived as significant of the importance, recognition and interest towards religious life rather than criticism or utilitarian didacticism.
{"title":"“A devout and holy sermon”: sources of parody in sermons joyeux","authors":"Daria N. Akhapkina","doi":"10.1515/humor-2023-0118","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0118","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 The sermon joyeux is a polemical and frivolous genre of late medieval French literature that parodies religious sermons. These humorous writings in verse transcended the canons of propriety and soon gained popularity across Europe, surviving even after the Middle Ages. This article, concentrating on the sermons joyeux that represent the lives of false saints, analyses three main sources of parody for this subgroup of the genre: the comic tradition of ecclesiastical parody in general, liturgical parody, and hagiographical parody. The study outlines a general landscape of the comic tradition in which sermons joyeux were created, highlighting some probable precursors to the genre with the goal of describing the characteristic features of these parodies. The analysis of the examples from the sermons joyeux themselves illuminates the reasons for the mock sermons’ popularity among and beyond clerical audiences and demonstrates how these texts may be perceived as significant of the importance, recognition and interest towards religious life rather than criticism or utilitarian didacticism.","PeriodicalId":516216,"journal":{"name":"HUMOR","volume":"33 16","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140744912","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Satires that tackle religion have always courted controversy. When Jerry Springer: The Opera was originally aired on the BBC in 2005, the show received 63,000 complaints and Christian Voice attempted to prosecute Mark Thompson (the Director General of the BBC) for blasphemy for airing the show. In this article I draw on the work of Stanley Fish and Gerben van Kleef to argue that interpretive communities of emotional readers provide a valuable framework for interpreting humor scandals. This framework contributes to our appreciation of the interpersonal in the emotional experience of humor and demonstrates that interpretations of humor are often goal-oriented and ideologically motivated. Using the examples of Christian Voice and Mediawatch-UK, I demonstrate how these emotional communities are constructed as well as the rhetorical strategies these organizations adopted. To accuse Jerry Springer: The Opera of blasphemy, for example, Christian Voice presented themselves as defenders of traditional British values. Finally, my analysis of these examples demonstrates that the potential for community outrage increases especially when the community faces a crisis of identity.
{"title":"Humor, emotion, and interpretive communities in the controversy over Jerry Springer: The Opera","authors":"Paul S Martin","doi":"10.1515/humor-2023-0102","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0102","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Satires that tackle religion have always courted controversy. When Jerry Springer: The Opera was originally aired on the BBC in 2005, the show received 63,000 complaints and Christian Voice attempted to prosecute Mark Thompson (the Director General of the BBC) for blasphemy for airing the show. In this article I draw on the work of Stanley Fish and Gerben van Kleef to argue that interpretive communities of emotional readers provide a valuable framework for interpreting humor scandals. This framework contributes to our appreciation of the interpersonal in the emotional experience of humor and demonstrates that interpretations of humor are often goal-oriented and ideologically motivated. Using the examples of Christian Voice and Mediawatch-UK, I demonstrate how these emotional communities are constructed as well as the rhetorical strategies these organizations adopted. To accuse Jerry Springer: The Opera of blasphemy, for example, Christian Voice presented themselves as defenders of traditional British values. Finally, my analysis of these examples demonstrates that the potential for community outrage increases especially when the community faces a crisis of identity.","PeriodicalId":516216,"journal":{"name":"HUMOR","volume":"364 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140749992","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Contemporary contacts and interactions with religion are often mediated by mass and social media. These sources vary in their reliability and some are known for their use of humor as a communicative strategy. In this article we analyze how humorous religion-related news triggers reactions to and discussions about the intertwined issues of humor, religion, history and ethnic identity. First, we look at how people perceive religion as an institution, contextualizing the results against the backdrop of the historical and present-day role of religion in the (ethnically, politically, and culturally) divided Estonian society. Second and more broadly, we analyze the (mis)use of strong religious symbols. We aim to understand why serious reactions to initially humorous fake news come about, and why humorous stimuli are sometimes met with discontent or even disgust. This contributes to understanding the intersection of humor and religion in divided societies. The results point out that the religious controversies triggered by humor are related to societal and political issues rather than ideas about religion and belief. We suggest that fast and broad dissemination via online media might be one of the reasons why the humorous and serious are closely interwoven in discussions on religious issues.
{"title":"Laughing and unlaughing at religion-related fake news in Estonia","authors":"L. Laineste, Anastasiya Fiadotava, T. Jonuks","doi":"10.1515/humor-2023-0119","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0119","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 Contemporary contacts and interactions with religion are often mediated by mass and social media. These sources vary in their reliability and some are known for their use of humor as a communicative strategy. In this article we analyze how humorous religion-related news triggers reactions to and discussions about the intertwined issues of humor, religion, history and ethnic identity. First, we look at how people perceive religion as an institution, contextualizing the results against the backdrop of the historical and present-day role of religion in the (ethnically, politically, and culturally) divided Estonian society. Second and more broadly, we analyze the (mis)use of strong religious symbols. We aim to understand why serious reactions to initially humorous fake news come about, and why humorous stimuli are sometimes met with discontent or even disgust. This contributes to understanding the intersection of humor and religion in divided societies. The results point out that the religious controversies triggered by humor are related to societal and political issues rather than ideas about religion and belief. We suggest that fast and broad dissemination via online media might be one of the reasons why the humorous and serious are closely interwoven in discussions on religious issues.","PeriodicalId":516216,"journal":{"name":"HUMOR","volume":"26 4","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140747517","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
This article establishes and demonstrates the importance of the topic of humor and religion. It traces the evolution of the existing scholarship on humor and religion, from its emergence in the 1960s, to its revival in the 1990s, and its latest resurgence in recent years. To overlook the presence of the comic, humor, and laughter in religious traditions is to overlook something significant. This article will demonstrate how interrogating and overcoming biases and preconceptions about the relationship between humor and religion reveals opportunities in both religious studies and humor studies. As such, this article offers a rejection of the existing privilege that is granted to ‘serious’ matters and argues for the inclusion of the non-serious – with a particular emphasis on humor – within (the study of) religion. In arguing for the necessity of taking the study of the (allegedly) non-serious seriously, the artificial nature of the binary of serious/non-serious becomes apparent. As such, this article begins to challenge and re-evaluate the conceptualization of ‘the serious’ and the limitations this inevitably places on our thinking and engagement regarding matters such as humor and religion.
{"title":"Unraveling the seriousness fallacy: a case for (the study of) humor and religion","authors":"Nicole Graham","doi":"10.1515/humor-2023-0100","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1515/humor-2023-0100","url":null,"abstract":"\u0000 This article establishes and demonstrates the importance of the topic of humor and religion. It traces the evolution of the existing scholarship on humor and religion, from its emergence in the 1960s, to its revival in the 1990s, and its latest resurgence in recent years. To overlook the presence of the comic, humor, and laughter in religious traditions is to overlook something significant. This article will demonstrate how interrogating and overcoming biases and preconceptions about the relationship between humor and religion reveals opportunities in both religious studies and humor studies. As such, this article offers a rejection of the existing privilege that is granted to ‘serious’ matters and argues for the inclusion of the non-serious – with a particular emphasis on humor – within (the study of) religion. In arguing for the necessity of taking the study of the (allegedly) non-serious seriously, the artificial nature of the binary of serious/non-serious becomes apparent. As such, this article begins to challenge and re-evaluate the conceptualization of ‘the serious’ and the limitations this inevitably places on our thinking and engagement regarding matters such as humor and religion.","PeriodicalId":516216,"journal":{"name":"HUMOR","volume":"72 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140747412","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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